Questions tagged [gm-techniques]
For questions about the practical arts and methods applied to gamemastering (GMing).
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Magic Items and their allocation [closed]
I have a predicament I've come across in a campaign I'm running. Here it is.
In a past session my DM (a friend of mine) challenged me to complete the entire trial with strict restrictions.
The ...
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My players have a habit of always torturing enemies they capture for information, how can I make our adventure less macabre? [closed]
So I'm running the lost mines of Phandelver as a new DM and we're about 5 sessions in. I've noticed a pattern that seems to repeat itself: the players defeat and capture an evil NPC character that ...
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How do I motivate players to do character sheet updates outside of session?
I run a weekly campaign with one session every Sunday. My core group (4-5 people) always show up, with the occasional person who joins from time to time (either playing a new character they wanted to ...
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How do I deal with long travels?
My group has faced a lot of just traveling; so sometimes I just say it's been 3 days since you started traveling, because I don't really have anything big planned on that particular road.
However in ...
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How should I as a game master motivate my players to pursue their mysteries?
I recently started running the Nights of Payne Town campaign with my TTRPG group. We play with custom-created characters, not pre-builds. All of us are long-time TTRPG players but are completely new ...
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As a GM, how do I keep Dungeons & Dragons more interesting for young players?
Currently, my group of players is my children, ages 7+ through 14+ (and several in between). They all are really excited about playing, but I am having great difficulty keeping them all interested ...
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How do you manage the impact of deep immersion in RPGs on players' real-life?
In a recent fantasy campaign, one of my players had trouble separating from their character after very immersive session. When her character's mentor figure died protecting the party she seemed ...
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How to Encourage Players to Engage in Diplomacy and Negotiations Instead of Resorting to Combat?
I've noticed that my players tend to lean heavily into combat as their go-to solution for just about every problem. Now, don't get me wrong, I love a good battle as much as the next person, but I've ...
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How do I handle when my players overestimate the importance of an encounter/a location?
TL;DR: How can I (and should I) make the players' efforts worth their while when they overestimate the importance of an encounter or a location?
I am running a homebrew DnD 5e adventure where the ...
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How to take large amounts of money away from the party without causing player resentment?
So, basically, last session, the person the players were escorting went back to his hometown, where he owes a massive debt to the residents. The residents of the town threatened to repossess his boat ...
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In the final act, how to drop clues without causing players to feel "cheated" they didn't find them sooner?
I'm a bit of an "on the fly" GM: in terms of writing a story, I prefer to sketch out the skeleton, and add flesh as the players move along the limbs. The quest to find the Plot Device, at ...
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How to describe a scene that a small creature chop a large creature's head off?
So let's assume a halfling (small size) wielding a Vorpal dagger attacking a storm giant (huge size), and the Vorpal ability gets triggered.
As a DM, how should I describe this scene? Would the dagger ...
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Does the DM need to declare a Natural 20?
I see a lot of D&D content out there and when combat starts eventually someone gets a roll of 20, a so-called Natural 20, shouts out "Nat 20" and everyone cheers. The DM then does some ...
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How to handle it if one player wants to take a risky course of action that nobody else wants?
Here is a situation that happened in a game that I was DMing:
The PCs had the option to ambush another group of adventurers, but this was highly risky: the PCs would be in trouble if caught. I ...
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How can a GM prevent growing disillusioned with their own game?
I recently began a new game in which I gave the players much more free reign in designing their characters than I might have in the past. What I wound up with was a very morally-diverse party, with ...
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Pulp campaign - end game?
I've seen "pulp" used more and more to describe the opposite of the cataclysmic trope whereby a campaign has arch-villains threatening to destroy the world. It's not hard to see what a lot ...
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How can I convey to my group that they have to discipline their murderhobo?
Introduction
I guess most GMs have had a group of murderhobos in their sessions before and there are quite a few nice answers dealing with how to react to them, these threads have nice answers, but I ...
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How does a GM fix the rules when they goof?
I think it happens to the best of us. I'm not the best of us, so I get to goof a bit more often. The specific example I'm going to mention was using Dresden Files (a derivative of FATE for those who ...
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How do I encourage players to use items and strategy in combat, instead of just standing there and saying "I attack"?
Scenario: I am a first time DM, playing with two of my best friends, who are first time players. One of them plays a Dwarf Cleric, the other one a Wood Elf Fighter. We played "Dragons of ...
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Is it possible to run a combat tournament without players feeling left out?
One classic trope of shonen anime is the tournament arc. Characters get to show off their individual skills and personalities, you get the opportunity to introduce and spotlight lots of interesting ...
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How do I include players too scared to take action?
I have started running Keys from the Golden Vault with my group. We just finished the first heist, the Murkmire Stone, which we ran at level 1.
This caused one of the players to take (relatively) ...
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How do I run a campaign that only goes to 6th level, and want to go to 20th level?
I want to be the DM of a published adventure: The Dragon of Icespire Peak, but am unsure of how to run it beyond 6th level. It offers suggestions to run beyond 6th level that I just don't understand. ...
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I'm a rookie GM with rookie players using a published campaign. How do I let players run the campaign after narratives without stepping in? [duplicate]
The title mainly explains my situation. I'm using The Dragon of Icespire Peak campaign from the D&D Essentials Kit. I want to run as the GM, but am unsure of what to do if players don't know what ...
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How much gold should a character gain per level?
I DM a group of 5 level 2 PCs, and currently they each have approximately 150gp each. I was just wondering if there's an average or recommended amount of gp that a PC should gain per level?
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How do I, as a DM, handle a party that decides to set up an ambush in a dungeon?
Warning: Lost Mine of Phandelver Chapter 1 spoilers below.
One of my players then pushed the party into moving out, probably because he's also a DM and could see that I was struggling to find a ...
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I want to pivot our campaign to Curse of Strahd, but the party is level 13. What should I do? [closed]
I'm a newbie DM running a remix of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. Our version of this adventure is less about speedy chases and clock ticking, but more about politics, alliances, mystery and deception. We'...
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How to handle rolled stats when I think one player cheated on theirs?
My group uses 4d6 drop lowest for stat generation.
The other players feel that the rolled stats of one of the other players are 'too good' in comparison to their rolls and I'm not certain that they ...
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How to arbitrate climactic moments in which characters might achieve something extraordinary?
A common plot point throughout the kinds of fantasy literature that inspire D&D settings can be described as a central character growing beyond themselves, reaching a previously unknown peak of ...
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How to start Role Playing as a complete group of beginners? [closed]
As the title says, we are a group of 4 complete beginners in Role Playing but we are very determined to start by one or two sessions.
We thought of using the D&D system, with everyone preparing ...
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How can I run a game with some players online and others at the table [duplicate]
A member of our group moved cross-country, and we'd like to include him in some of our games.
Is it feasible to play a game with some players at the table and another online? If so, how do I, as the ...
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How many dice does the GM roll when challenging the players?
I'd like to run a game of Roll for Shoes, but I'm not sure how many dice I roll when the characters face various challenges.
I'm under the impression that it's supposed to be the same number of dice ...
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How to Use Module Maps
I found a module I'd like to run. It includes some great maps. What's the best way to use them in a gaming session? They're too small to use as-is, so I'm wondering how other people use maps from ...
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How can I effectively decrease metagaming and increase player immersion?
This question is posed in a great way over on the Paizo boards, where I hang out since I play/run a lot of Pathfinder. Immersion is one of the key parts of the RPG experience to me, so I loved the ...
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How should I handle an unidentified deck of many things?
I know some people hate and fear the deck of many things, but as a GM running a high-lethality sandbox campaign, there's many things I like about it - and I'd like to deploy one for my players to find....
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How can I deal with the challenges a player having Mind-Reading represents without negating their ability?
As I prepare for a campaign to run, I realize that several of the things I want to do in this campaign may be shortcut by mind reading and telepathy. Unfortunately, many of the solutions to defending ...
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Dealing with 2 Immature Players Who Detract from the Experiences of Others
I have read a number of threads here similar to but not the same as the problem my group and I are having (including this thread, this answer, this answer to a similar situation, and this question ...
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How to make the exploration loop more interesting (exploring rooms etc.)?
Situation
One issue that I have experienced very often in the past, both as a player and a DM, with beginners and experienced people, is this phenomenon:
The party enters a dungeon or building, and ...
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How can I make combat more tactically interesting for me as a DM?
For me, I find it very difficult to enjoy DMing combat encounters. Combat is generally very dry and monotonous. What can I do to make combat more enjoyable for me as a DM?
Some of the issues I have ...
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How do I convince my players the fight wasn't rigged?
I am a DM in a homebrew setting (and system) that I made. We recently started the first big quest and it kicked off with them fighting two enemies.
In the fight, they were going to lose, but through ...
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How can my villain intimidate my players' characters into submission?
I'm planning a new campaign where the villain will force the party to do his bidding, starting from level 3.
The opening will be an encounter with the villain, where he will "ask" them to do not-so-...
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I have two players that enjoy each other's company to the point they're ignoring other players turns, ideas, and RP in general
Like the title says, two players engage in mostly quiet small talk amongst themselves. However, they miss what the other characters are saying, both to the DM and to each other, meaning either I or ...
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How to present background information and NPC backstories?
The books for a published adventure I've GM'd recently (PF1's Wrath of the Righteous) contain a lot of background information about NPCs, events and locations, which is very fun to read for me as a GM ...
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Magic Item for summoning minions?
This question is a follow up for my question Can a player use two characters in a campaign? Instead of adding another PC to the party to make up for how squishy the group is (the group being a wizard, ...
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How to keep new players following the questline? [duplicate]
Recently I've started DMing a premade campaign (Curse of Strahd) for 4 players and I'm having issues keeping them along the pre-made questline.
I've been playing an official campaign to practice being ...
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How to stop a player from looking up monster stat blocks in combat?
In my 5th edition Eberron campaign I have a player who is determined to metagame in combat which makes it really hard for the others to actually get much enjoyment. Recently the problem player gained ...
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Can a player use two characters in a campaign?
I've been the DM in a campaign based in the Eberron world and the party is made primarily out of squishy level 4 characters (wizard, druid, and a bard.)
During one of the combat encounters we had an ...
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What are the techniques for writing descriptive posts in a timely manner as a game master?
To clarify, especially after Covid I have become an exclusively text based game GM and I am looking to improve my description of events (and maybe add a bit of an artistic flare) but that results in ...
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How can I add more roleplay to the game I'm DMing when not all players want that?
This is mainly just a question I decided to ask out of curiosity because sometimes I can get bored of a campaign and I wouldn't want to end it because the players could still be enjoying themselves. ...
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As a GM, how do I encourage a party to interact with each other?
Background:
I'm a fairly inexperienced GM and I'm working with a group that has wildly varying experience with role-playing - the game is intended as a teaching campaign to help a couple new players ...
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How to deal with players who like to use the local authorities to solve their problems
The problem
I have a player in my group which tends to approach local authorities (may it be guards or churches) when facing a threat. He thinks that, given his role (a bard in a medieval world, so, ...